Citizen Filibuster

Vision Vancouver is about to hand over 97% of the single family lots to developers, in what appears to be a parting gift to party’s most loyal donors. Mayor Gregor Robertson and Vision-dominated council will hold a public hearing on September 18, barely a month before the election, in an attempt to ram through a mass rezoning motion. We are organizing a citizen action to block the city from doing this without properly consulting you, and we need your help to pull this off.

You have told us time and time again that housing affordability is a huge problem. Did you know that mass rezoning will cause all property values to rise? That’s because high density development becomes a sure thing rather than a gamble for developers. It also means that if you are looking to buy or rent or trade up, you will face even higher property values. If your income doesn’t rise with rising property values, you will end up losing even more buying power. With that in mind, how exactly does mass rezoning help your housing affordability challenges?

Did you also know that we have found in the past, your neighbourhood can lose upwards of 85% of the development fees needed for community enhancing features? This includes the loss of park spaces, art spaces, daycares, community centres, and many more public resources your neighbourhood needs to grow sustainably. With more residents in your area as a result of densification, why should your neighbourhood lose out in the process of upzoning?

Whatever one feels about mass density, it’s difficult to not feel disgusted by the way Vision is trying force this upon us. Every voice should matter — not just the voices of those who are elected. We urge all Vancouverites to sign up to speak and carry out, for the first time in our city’s history, a citizen’s filibuster to preserve our democracy.